Custody complaint
Mi’kmaq man says he experienced racial slurs, taunting, unsanitary conditions
A man serving a six-month sentence at the Provincial Correctional Centre on Sleepy Hollow Road in P.E.I.’s Miltonvale Park believes his treatment at the facility was so bad, he wound up in hospital as a result.
Charles Wallace, a Mi’kmaq man who grew up in Afton, N.S., is serving time for driving without a licence and several breaches of probation. Calling from a hospital bed at the Aberdeen Hospital in New Glasgow, N.S., Wallace told The Guardian he contracted pneumonia and E. coli poisoning due to the conditions at the P.E.I. facility.
Wallace also claims he has endured a month of verbal abuse and racist taunts from jail guards.
The Guardian reached out to Wallace and his girlfriend, Dani Stoilov.
“He’s really sick,” Stoilov told The Guardian.
“His lungs, they’re filled with blood clots and fluid.”
Wallace has had a long history with the prison system. He admitted to The Guardian he had spent much of his adult life behind bars. He was an instigator of an assault of another inmate in Halifax’s Central Nova Correctional Facility in 2015 while serving time for drug possession.
But Wallace said his experiences at the P.E.I. correction centre were different.
Wallace told The Guardian he initially thought he would have an easy stay at the jail. He believed the facility was “more like a day care” than a prison.
But shortly after he arrived, Wallace found several items from his canteen – Cheez Whiz and cream cheese – “squashed” in his cell. An argument between Wallace and guards ensued; Wallace believed the guards had destroyed the items.
Words and threats were exchanged, and Wallace was eventually wrestled to the ground and put in a chokehold.
He was taken to solitary confinement, where he would remain for weeks.
After three days, he was transferred to an observation cell because he told an RCMP officer that he was suicidal.
At this point, Wallace believes his treatment at the hands of guards took a vindictive turn. He claims he was denied access to a recreation yard and to regular showers. Guards would keep trays of food in view but just out of reach, he said.
He also claims he was refused a request to perform the Indigenous cultural practice of smudging, in recognition of a son who had recently died in a car accident. He says one guard called him a ‘dirty Indian’ after he began washing himself with milk after days without a shower. He said he was called a “rat” and “maggot” by other guards. He feared the term “rat” would lead to retaliation from other inmates.
He became desperate.
One night, he cut his wrists with plaster. “I wrote ‘help me’ in blood on the wall,” Wallace said.
He said he hoped the cameras would see that he was in distress. Instead, he said guards angrily told him to clean up the wall and pushed a garbage can at him.
Wallace said he did receive medical attention from a nurse and saw a psychologist shortly after this incident. By this time, he had started coughing at night. He was examined by a nurse, who told him he had the flu.
Wallace claimed the solitary cell was unsanitary and had blood and feces on the wall.
“I didn’t even want to get off the mattress,” Wallace said.
Weeks after being placed in solitary, he was taken to hospital in Charlottetown, received an X-ray, was put on antibiotics and was given Voltaren gel by prison staff. But the coughing continued.
At the end of November, following a court date in Nova Scotia, Wallace collapsed in a cell in Pictou. He was taken to hospital.
“They couldn’t even fully diagnose him until four days ago because he had so much fluid in his lungs, they couldn’t get a biopsy of anything,” Wallace’s girlfriend Dani Stoilov said.
Wallace said he has since had five surgical procedures in Halifax. Stoilov insists that he was in good health before his sentence began in P.E.I.
A spokesperson with the Department of Justice and Public Safety would not comment directly on Wallace’s claims, other than to state that the department was “looking into” Wallace’s concerns.
A statement emailed to The Guardian noted guards are required to take training in conflict crisis intervention, diversity and equity and suicide prevention.
“Use of racial slurs or other provocation by employees would not be tolerated. Allegations of such behaviour would be explored and addressed, as appropriate based on findings,” read the statement.
When asked about the sanitation of solitary cells between stays of different inmates, the representative said cells are cleaned by staff and that inmates can, upon request, have access to cleaning supplies.
A representative of the P.E.I. Human Rights Commission confirmed to The Guardian that a complaint has been filed on behalf of Wallace against the Provincial Correctional Centre. The grounds for the complaint are alleged discrimination based on colour, race, ethnic or national origin and criminal conviction.
Wallace’s sentence is slated to finish in January.